Full Ride Scholarships 2024-2025: How to apply for Full-Ride Scholarships?
List of Full Ride Scholarships in 2021
Full ride scholarships for the academic sessions 2024-2025 are now open in all Universities of the USA; where the students can now submit their applications for Ful-ride scholarship award.
What is a Scholarship?
A scholarship is basically free money that is sponsored by private bodies or the government to help the students get through college. When the students are looking into ways with which they can fund their studies, they definitely look for scholarships that can help them pay their college expenses in part or full.
What is a Full-Ride Scholarship:
A full-ride scholarship is one that covers all the relevant educational expenses of its recipients. These expenses include tuition fees, administration fees, board and room expenses, meals, textbooks, etc. some of them also give the recipients a monthly stipend, a laptop, and an amount for other miscellaneous expenses.
Difference between Full Tuition Scholarship and a Full-Ride Scholarship:
In many places, the terms full-ride and full-tuition are used interchangeably. But, there is a difference between both of them. In a full-tuition scholarship, you are still supposed to pay for overhead expenses whereas a full-ride scholarship covers almost every thinkable college expense and sometimes also gives out enrichment allowance. A full-tuition scholarship can be given to new and transferred students based on their high scores on SAT or ACT or because of their impressive CGPA.
Full-ride scholarships are rare and are usually given at the masters, and Ph.D. levels. On the other hand, a full-tuition scholarship is available at the bachelor’s level as well.
A full-ride scholarship may be able to save around 200,000 USD of yours that would have gone toward paying for college. About 86 North American universities offer a fully-funded scholarship.
Tuition-Free Colleges that offer financial aid:
There are some colleges in the USA that are tuition-free. That means, every student getting into these schools will be able to study without having to worry about paying for tuition. The number of these tuition-free colleges is around 20.
Remember, there is a difference between a tuition-free college and a college that gives some students exemption from paying the tuition fee.
Full-Ride Scholarships for International Students:
As it may have been cleared by now that a full-ride scholarship covers every college expense, but, there is a little irony in that fact too. Most full-ride scholarships in the USA are reserved for US citizens. As these scholarships are funded by the colleges themselves, private donors, or by the government, their top priority is to benefit their own citizens rather than the students coming from abroad.
But, on the flip side, some institutions have a quota for full-ride scholarships reserved for international students as well. Though the number of these schools may be low, chances are you would be able to get one especially if you have a nice enough SAT score.
The cost of attending a college in the USA is somewhere between 5,000 USD to 50,000 USD a year. Through a full-ride grant, one is able to attend college without having to worry about the financial backing of it.
How to get a Full-Ride Scholarship:
The scholarship guidelines outline the criteria for getting the scholarship. The merit-based awards are reserved for students with high academic standing and leadership skills. But, for your convenience, we have combined the five most important things that will help you land the scholarship of your dreams.
- Test Scores
The scholarship website identifies the scores of SATs, ACTs, or PSATs that are required in order to be eligible for applying for the scholarship. The eligibility criterion defines the bare minimum. So, one should always strive to get a score that is higher than that.
- Skills, Interests, and Extra-Curricular Involvement:
The scholarship committee wants to see what a student can do outside of the classroom as well. If you have volunteer experience, leadership skills, and/or have been involved in community building, be sure to mention it.
- Recommendation Letters:
A good recommendation letter by your professor outlining the characteristics of your personality can also make your profile strong.
- Personal Statement:
Things like personal statement, statement of purpose, or personal essays highlight your aims and goals. They help the scholarship committee understand your potential.
- Grades:
Last, but certainly not least is good grades. If you do not have nice grades to speak of, all the above-mentioned things can turn out to be useless for you. So, be sure to achieve and maintain high grades.
Tenure of a Full-Ride Scholarship:
A full-ride scholarship is initially given for a year but is subject to renewal. If the recipient performs well in the first year and meets the eligibility criteria for renewal, he or she is able to get the funding for the subsequent years as well. In short, if you work hard enough, you may be able to get the scholarship for all four years of your studies.
Full-Ride Scholarship and Housing:
Some students get confused as to whether or not a full-ride program supports the accommodation of students. The answer is, it does. A full-ride scholarship is meant to take care of your room and board charges as well and it even covers an allowance for meeting the living expenses.
The Percentage of Students Getting a Full-Ride Grant:
Among all the students getting enrolled in USA colleges in a given year, about 1% to 3% get a fully-funded scholarship.
According to one other study, only 0.2% of the students were able to get a full-ride scholarship in recent years.
Merit-Based Scholarships:
Merit-based bursaries, as the name depicts are given to students on the basis of their educational record, athletic record, community work, or involvement in extra-curricular events. This kind of scholarship neglects the candidate’s financial position and only considers their scholastic background.
The Use of Scholarship Money:
These kinds of scholarships set the limit for spending the money. For instance, if the scholarship is given for tuition, board, and supplies, you will only be able to use it on these expenses. The money can only be used on the charges billed directly by the school and if a recipient tries to use it on any other thing, it will simply bounce.
Using Scholarship Money to Pay-off Loans:
The scholarship guidelines clearly state the places where one can use the scholarship money. Some of the scholarships send the money directly to the finance offices of the schools so the student cannot use the money elsewhere. If you are given a check for the scholarship money, it will only be acceptable in approved places, so there is no point in trying to use the money somewhere else.
How to Receive the Scholarship Money?
The mode of receiving the scholarship amount can vary with every school. But normally once you get the offer of the scholarship, the money is deposited into your student account under fourteen days of receiving the letter. That money can only be used only in authorized places.
A scholarship offering free tuition deposits the tuition fee in the student’s college account before the due date.
Do I Have to pay all the Scholarship Money Back?
These kinds of scholarships are funded by private corporations, schools, government, welfare communities, or religious and ethnic groups. Usually, there is no requirement of paying the money back as it is awarded on the basis of academic or non-academic merit.
But there are exceptions to this rule as well. If a student fails to meet the conditions of the scholarship, or breaks the university laws, or gets involved in any illicit activity, he/she may lose the scholarship and may even be required to pay back the amount that has already been used.
In some cases, the admissions of the recipients are revoked as well if it is proved that the student has been involved in malpractice.
